Palin takes the media for a ride

POLITICO

Published 4:05 pm, Wednesday, June 1, 2011

The purpose, or even destination, of Sarah Palin's bus tour might be murky, but one thing the tour has demonstrated is that the former Alaska governor is at the top of her game as the "lamestream" media's tormentor-in-chief.

For much of the last four days, Palin's aides have refused to share the tour's schedule with the media, claiming they don't know where the bus is going next and forcing anyone trying to cover it to engage in a cartoon-ish, medium-speed bus chase. The zoo continued in New York Wednesday, as roughly 50 reporters pressed her, unsuccessfully, for details of future stops, and Palin had to prompt her daughter to apologize for having pushed a cameraman.

The notable exception to this tense relationship has been Palin's Fox News colleague, Greta Van Susteren, who was invited on the bus for an interview that aired Tuesday night. Van Susteren wrote in her blog that she didn't have any more of an idea where Palin was going next than any of the rest of the media, but she did get Palin to explain the method to her media madness.

"I don't think I owe anything to the mainstream media," Palin said. "I think that it would be a mistake for me to become some kind of conventional politician and doing things the way that it's always been done with the media, in terms of relationship with them. Tell them to come along, we'll orchestrate this, we'll script this, and we'll basically write a story for you, media, about what we are doing every day.

"No, I want them to have to do a little bit of work on a tour like this, and that would include not necessarily telling them beforehand where every stop is going to be."

The circus may have reached its pinnacle Tuesday morning in Gettysburg, when Palin used her tour bus as a decoy to drag a gaggle of reporters, some of whom had been waiting since 4:30 a.m., to the back entrance of her hotel - only to slip out another entrance and take off to visit the battleground.

The bus, meanwhile, served as a decoy, driving in circles, tailed by a caravan of reporters and supporters.

Eventually, Palin got back on the bus and headed toward Dillsburg, with a half-dozen vehicles in hot pursuits. As she neared Philadelphia, a media caravan still trailing her bus, a couple of local television news choppers followed overhead to film the spectacle.

The strategy has provoked howls from the mainstream media, which has generally covered Palin's tour within the context of the very open question of whether she is running for president.

"I just hope to God that one of these young producers with a camera whose bosses are making them follow Sarah Palin as a potential Republican candidate don't get in a car crash, because this is dangerous," CBS News Producer Ryan Corsaro told CBS News's Brian Montopoli.

When Van Susteren asked Palin if she was having fun tweaking the media, Palin claimed that was an accidential byproduct of her tour.

"It's always been unintentional, my tweaking of the media," she said. "I just am who I am. I've always said that I am not a conventional, status-quo politician."

But Palin has not exactly made a secret of her antipathy to the mainstream media, which she felt was unfair to her when she ran for vice president in 2008, and has made a science of bypassing it to connect directly to her fans via Facebook, Twitter, books, and carefully crafted videos.

As in previous events, Palin wants to tell the story herself, with no mediator - her entourage includes a photographer and videographer. And when it comes to writing up what happened at the end of the day, Palin made it clear that she wants it to be her.

"We'll do a stop, we'll do a lot of OTRs - off the records - we'll meet a lot of great Americans, and then I'll write about that at the end of the day," she said. "It's not about me. It's not a publicity seeking tour. It's about highlighting the great things about America."

Van Susteren wrote on her blog that Palin's avoidance of the media - at least her decision not to give a press conference or another interview - was a result of her contract as a Fox News contributor.

"She works for Fox, and just as with any employee or someone on contract with another network, she is contractually obligated NOT to speak to others," Van Susteren wrote. "For instance, when I was in Haiti, I could not interview CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta or when I want to talk politics, I can't interview CNN's Donna Brazile. They work for another network. As far as I know, her contract is like every other media contract and that means it would be a breach of contract to speak to other media outlets."

Jon Stewart had some fun with this explanation on "The Daily Show" Tuesday night.

"So really, Sarah Palin's full answer to 'Why aren't you talking to the press?' should be one, 'I'm an unconventional maverick who doesn't play by the rules,' and two, 'Roger Ailes won't let me,"' Stewart said.

But others weren't laughing. The Hill's Brent Budowsky argued that Fox had already crossed a line with the Federal Elections Commission by keeping Palin on the payroll during the tour.

"The FEC should treat monies Fox pays to Palin and airtime Fox gives her as real or in-kind campaign donations by Fox to the Palin PAC," he wrote.

In fact, Fox News's decision to end its contracts with Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, but not with Palin, has been understood by most media watchers as an indication that Fox, at least, doesn't think she's running. ("The Daily Show's" Samantha Bee joked it was actually an indication that Fox just likes Palin better than Gingrich and Santorum.)

Palin stopped by Fox offices Wednesday to speak with her bosses, and Fox News executive vice president of programming Bill Shine said in a statement that "Right now there is no change in her status with Fox News."

Palin supporters at Conservatives4Palin argued that Palin's decision to not give out her schedule was mainly to avoid big crowds at the landmarks she was visiting as someone who is still, at this point, just "a very famous tourist."

"So, sure, she's driving around in a huge bus with the words "One Nation- We the People" on the side," wrote Conservatives4Palin's Nicole Coulter. "And sure, she's being followed by a press corps that sometimes beclowns itself reporting on her every move. But I don't think this operational secrecy is purposely just to tweak her favorite punching bags in the 'lamestream media.' I think in a deeper sense Palin is showing reverence to our nation's history by letting these historical sites speak for themselves, a very laissez-faire conservative idea, would you not agree? She may be a very famous tourist who is possibly about to embark on a presidential run, but on this tour, she's also just one of the folks."

As the tour rolled into its fourth day Wednesday, the snubs kept coming, with Palin at one point literally leaving reporters at the dock when she took a ferry from New Jersey to Ellis Island. State police, alerted to her plans, whisked her onto the boat, while forcing reporters to wait for the next one.

Throughout most of Wednesday, her aides declined to respond to multiple requests from POLITICO in person and via phone and email to offer any additional details about her next stop. Wednesday afternoon, she announced she was headed to Boston.

A Palin aide said last week that the bus would be headed to New Hampshire - though the same aide also said she'd be making a stop at the Civil War battlefield in Antietam, Md. The tour skipped that stop.